Discussion

On and off the grid: acoustic drummers and electronic music

With Katharina Ernst, Kiran Gandhi and Zach Danziger in coversation with Dennis DeSantis

Drumset players and electronic beat makers have similar problems to solve, but have traditionally approached solving them in radically different ways. Recently however, more and more innovative drummers are incorporating the language of electronic music into their drumming, while also adapting the subtle timing inflections and “feel” of human playing into their beat programming.

The three drummers in this discussion come from different musical backgrounds but are united by their fluidity in moving between the worlds of live and sequenced drumming. In an open-ended discussion, they’ll cover topics such as how drummers approach playing with backing tracks or loops; how beat programmers can write more human-like drum parts; playing “ahead of” or “behind” the beat versus strict quantization; and how drummers generally think about the flow of musical time.